On the Run

Chapter 29: Open Sesame?

8:10 pm, Singhania Holiday Home, Anjuna, Goa.

I sat upright on the bed and looked around in order to make sure that there were no CCTV cameras set up in the room.

After scanning the entire room thoroughly, I concluded that there most probably weren't any...

When I went to the door and tried to open it, I found that it was locked!

Well, if there weren't any cameras, it was quite natural that the Singhanias had locked me up!

All of a sudden, I remembered my promise to Manik to call him every hour! He would be so worried! An hour had already passed!

I reached for my bag which was kept at the foot of the bed, and yanked the phone out of the giant sanitary napkin packet.

I then tiptoed to the bathroom, and locked the door. If anyone were to come into the room, I didn't want them to spot me with a phone!

I took a deep breath and dialed the number that Manik had given me in the morning.

The phone barely rang once before Manik picked up!

"Nandini? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did Madhyam touch you? I'll kill him if he did!" Manik ranted on and on, without even waiting for my response.

"Manik, would you just stop for a moment and give me a chance to speak?!" I hissed in frustration.

There was silence for a few seconds, on the other end before he answered. "Sorry..."

His sweet apology made my heart melt instantly...

"I'm fine, Manik! They haven't hurt me! I was right, Manik! They haven't told Meenakshi aunty the whole story! While she's around, they won't try to harm me! She allowed me to stay the night! Now,all I have to do is try to steal the recording while everyone's asleep!" I said, enthusiastically.

"Wait! So your fainting plan actually worked? Those scumbags didn't chuck you out?" He asked in an incredulous tone.

Wait! What? How did he know what I'd done in order to stay the night here?!

"How the hell did you know about that?" I asked in a shocked voice.

"Did you really think that the doctor was stupid enough to actually pronounce you unconscious when you clearly weren't? While I was waiting to hear from you, I saw a man wearing a white lab coat, walking towards the Singhania mansion. My curiosity got the better of me and I ran up to him in order to ask him, what he was doing there...That's when he told me that some girl had fainted at the mansion and he was going to attend her! It immediately struck me that this must be some sort of ruse of yours in order to stay back at the house! I was pretty sure that you hadn't actually fainted...I know you're stronger than that! So let's just say that I convinced him to go along with your plan..." He said cheekily.

"Manik, what did you do?" I asked, slightly scared of his reply.

"I might have threatened to break his bones badly, if he didn't listen to me..." Manik confessed, hesitantly.

I slapped my forehead when I heard his answer.

"Manik, you can't just scare people like that!" I said, in an exasperated voice.

"Listen, it worked right? Now the Singhanias think that you really fainted! Besides, I don't care what people think of me!" He said in a smug voice.

Aiyappa, this boy! He's just so careless when it comes to himself! Here I was praising myself for my spectacular acting performance, and it turned out that my plan had only worked due to Manik's threats!